The Troubled Air (45 page)

“Like what?” Archer asked stonily.

Hutt looked surprised. “Do I have to tell you?”

“I’m afraid you do,” Archer said. “My memory is failing me.”

“It goes all the way back to the time you were teaching in college. But really, now,” Hutt laughed softly, “I don’t have to tell
you.”

“What did I do in college?” Archer asked. “I really want to know.”

“Well, for one thing …” Hutt shrugged, as though half good-naturedly giving into Archer’s whim. “You were one of the founders of a chapter of some college instructors’ union. And then you were chairman at a meeting called together by the American Student Union to hear a Communist candidate for office in 1935.”

1935, Archer thought desperately, trying to reach back into his memory, what did I do in 1935? He remembered nothing.

“The American Student Union, as you know, of course,” Hutt said, “is on the Attorney-General’s list of subversive organizations.”

“I don’t know of course,” Archer said. “And I’m damn sure it wasn’t on any list in 1935. The list didn’t come out till 1947.”

“Now, Archer.” Hutt shook his head, mildly reproving. “That’s mere verbal juggling.” He smiled again. “And then you seemed to sign your name to every piece of paper that had the word Spanish on it between the years of 1936 and 1940. Good Lord, man, it looks as though you were trying to win the Spanish war single-handed right in Ohio.” He laughed generously, showing Archer that he understood the immature enthusiasms of youthful history instructors. “And then, it seems you contributed to Russian War Relief in 1942.”

“I won’t even comment on that,” Archer said. “You’ll probably find fifty senators on the same list.”

“Conceded,” Hutt said reasonably. “But it sounds unpleasant these days just the same, doesn’t it? And it
has
been declared subversive.”

“I guarantee,” Archer said, “not to relieve the Russians in any future wars. Does that make everybody happy?”

“Actually, Archer,” Hutt said pleasantly, “you happen to be in a quite fortunate position. Through no fault of your own, and at the moment, I’m sure you don’t appreciate it fully …” He chuckled. “But that columnist on that Red sheet who’s been after you the last couple of days has done you a world of good, actually.”

“What?” Archer asked, bewildered. “What do you mean?”

“An attack from that quarter is enormously wholesome,” Hutt said sonorously, “and reassures people who have been entertaining serious doubts about your reliability. And some of the phrases he’s used, although they’re the most exaggerated nonsense, like ‘vanguard of Fascism’ and ‘hatchet-man for the imperialist war-mongers’ have the effect of giving you almost a clean bill of health, all by themselves. Almost, I said.” Hutt pointed his finger warningly. “Almost. Of course,” he said sympathetically, “some of the other things must be rather embarrassing and I’m terribly sorry they had to be printed. The absurd bit about the Yogi exercises and the information about your being rejected by the Army.”

“Loony,” Barbante said at the window. “Cracked as an old jug. Our Clem. On a clear day you can see his brain parting at the seams.”

Hutt glanced sharply at Barbante, then decided to ignore him. “But then you’ve got to expect vulgarities like that,” Hutt said to Archer, “from gentlemen of that persuasion.”

Persuasion, Archer thought dazedly. What does he mean by that? Does he mean Roberts’ religion?

“Still,” Hutt said expansively, “I’m sure that if you answer all the questions put to you this afternoon by the gentlemen of the press, and answer them candidly and frankly, as I said, and as I am sure you can and will, we’ll find that you will be completely rehabilitated in the public mind by the time our next program goes on the air. And anything I may have said previously to you, in a moment of exasperation—” Hutt waved his large pretty hands magnanimously “—anything to the effect that your usefulness was at an end or any hint that perhaps we would have to come to a parting of the ways, I’m sure both you and I will be able to forgive and forget.”

He smiled, friendly, dapper, in control, maintaining the perfect, cool, superior, almost cordial relationship of employer and employee.

“Barbante,” he said, standing up and taking a step toward the writer, speaking in the hushed, sedative tones of a male nurse, “even though for the moment you no longer happen to be associated with us, I think it would be a nice gesture on your part if you would be present at the conference this afternoon, although of course there is no hint of any accusation against you.” He chuckled paternally. “You never seemed to have signed anything at all.”

“I was too busy,” Barbante said soberly, “following girls down Madison Avenue.”

Hutt smiled, the male nurse humoring the patient. “Of course you did go to the funeral yesterday,” he said, “and there might be a question or two on that score, but I’m sure there’ll be no real difficulty.”

Even as involved as he was with his own dazed reactions to Hutt’s speech, Archer knew that Hutt shouldn’t have used the word, “funeral.” From the look on O’Neill’s face Archer recognized that O’Neill was of the same opinion. Archer saw Barbante growing tense. His head rocked a little from side to side and he flicked the Venetian blinds in a rapid, irregular, tinny rhythm. But for the moment, he didn’t reply. Hutt looked at him curiously, frowning slightly, then turned back to Archer. “Oh,” he said, as though he had just remembered, “one more thing. Word has reached me that tonight there is to be a meeting at the St. Regis Hotel, a meeting called and paid for by Communists in radio, television and the theatre, to protest the so-called blacklist. Word has reached me, also, that several people from our program have been invited to attend. Naturally,” he said carelessly, “I expect everyone in this room to leave it severely alone.”

“Can’t go to funerals,” Barbante muttered, walking unsteadily toward O’Neill’s desk. “Can’t go to the St. Regis. Can’t go to the potty, because Lloyd Hutt says no.”

“Barbante,” Hutt said sharply, “since you’ve decided you no longer wish to work for us, I think you can be excused from this conference.”

Barbante stared at him drunkenly, thick-eyed. “The man in the Bronzini tie,” he said. Then he came over to Archer. “Clem,” he said, “a woman I never met coined a phrase. Name of La Pasionaria. Spanish lady. Red as the Russian flag, I wouldn’t be surprised. During that little old war you tried to win with your signature in Ohio, Clem. Eloquent old bag. Made a speech. Know what she said?” He peered owlishly at Archer, who was standing now, near the door. “I’ll tell you what she said—‘You can die on your feet,’ the lady said, ‘or you can live on your knees.’ Wartime choice. Oratory. Heard round the world. OK, while it lasted, Clem. Old-fashioned. Romantic. Other times, other choices. Not up to date. Shows signs of wear and tear, obso—” He stumbled on the word. “Obsolescence. Needs modernizing and I’m the boy to do it. With special permission of the copyright owner. Got it all brushed up for Mr. Hutt and 1950. Still preserve original form, original concision. Still preserve important element of choice. Here it is, the latest model—” He peered around him triumphantly. “You can die on your feet,” he said loudly, thinking hard, “or you can die on your knees. Hear me, Clem?” He touched Archer’s shoulder, briefly. “OK, OK.” he said pettishly, “I’m going.”

He went out, walking carefully.

There was silence in the room for a moment and then Hutt said, “Well, I’m glad we got rid of him.” Then, more softly, to Archer, “Well, I don’t think there’s anything more we have to discuss at the moment, Archer. I won’t keep you any longer. I’ll see you up here this afternoon at three. We’re using the Board of Directors’ room because we expect a lot of people.”

“No,” Archer said, and he listened carefully to the words that were coming out of his mouth, as though they were surprising him, too. “No, you won’t see me up here this afternoon.”

“What’s that?” Hutt asked.

Archer saw O’Neill slowly lower his head and look down at the desk in front of him.

“I won’t be here this afternoon,” Archer said evenly. “I’m not coming to your party. I’m busy. I have to prepare the speech I’m going to make at the St. Regis.” He picked up his hat and coat, throwing his coat over his arm. He felt very calm.

“Archer …” Hutt began. Then he stopped. His shoulders drooped and his mouth twitched and he looked older and more human than he had five minutes before and for a moment Archer was sure there was something baffled and frightened and pleading in the well-kept, controlled, handsome face. Then Archer went out.

“O’Neill,” he heard Hutt’s voice saying wearily, as he went into the outer office, “if you’ll be so good as to close the door, there are one or two things we have to talk about …”

Archer went downstairs and called the number Burke had given him and told him he would be at the St. Regis early.

H
E WANTED TO BE ALONE FOR AWHILE, SO HE WALKED ALL THE WAY
downtown, even though the weather was threatening and it was cold and it looked like snow. He tried to think of what he wanted to say at the meeting that night, but all he could think of were sentences that began, “It is guaranteed in the First Amendment,” and “As the Bill of Rights puts it,” and “In the words of Voltaire …”

Archer walked down Fifth Avenue, past the department stores, with their windows full of dresses, coats and furs, and the women rushing in and out of the doors, their faces lit with the light of purchase. It is the new profession for the female sex, he thought—buying. If you wanted to set up an exhibit to show modern American women in their natural habitat, engaged in their most characteristic function, he thought, like the tableaux in the Museum of Natural History in which stuffed bears are shown against a background of caves, opening up honeycombs, you would have to set up a stuffed woman, slender, high-heeled, rouged, waved, hot-eyed, buying a cocktail dress in a department store. In the background, behind the salesgirls and the racks and shelves, there would be bombs bursting, cities crumbling, scientists measuring the half-life of tritium and radioactive cobalt. The garment would be democratically medium-priced and the salesgirl would be just as pretty as the customer and, to the naked eye at least, just as well dressed, to show that the benefits of a free society extended from one end of the economic spectrum to the others. Eat, drink and acquire, because tomorrow the city may no longer be here or the price of rayon may go up.

He moved into the zone of Oriental rugs and Chinese objets d’art. The men who went in and out of the stores seemed dispirited and beaten, as though they were trying, without success, to hide from themselves the fact that no one bought Oriental rugs any more and that the Chinese had long ago given up making vases, ivory fans and plump, glazed horses in favor of the more interesting business of destroying one another.

The men and women who hurried past him on the avenue looked sullen and cold, as though they thought the bitter weather was a personal attack against them, unjustly delivered by a malicious and powerful enemy: Today, Archer thought, regarding the city, everyone looks as though he would rather be somewhere else.

Washington Square was better because there were children there. They slept in carriages and they chased puppies on the dead grass and they played ball against the monument, unaware that the weather was bitter or that they would soon become adults who would feel the cold and be doomed to stand in shops and try to sell things that no one wanted any more. Washington Square was one of Archer’s favorite walks, but on one side workmen were tearing down a handsome old building, and it stood in jagged ruins, as though it had been prematurely bombed. And on the other side, New York University had spilled over into the beautiful row of mansions, and when you walked past you saw fluorescent lighting and people typing at crowded desks in lovely, high-ceilinged rooms where ladies and gentlemen should have been balancing teacups and speaking in deliberate sentences. Grace, Archer thought, is being superseded by ruins and institutions. Private sweetness is giving way to public need, or at least to what the public thought it needed.

In five years’ time, Archer thought, the only people who will have the heart to walk in Washington Square will be law students and accountants.

He decided to go home and try to write the speech he had to deliver that night. Maybe, he thought, putting it on paper would make it easier. As he walked toward his house he hoped that Kitty was out. It would be good to have the house all to himself with no questions to be answered, no disturbing domestic noises except the distant humming of Gloria in the kitchen.

But when he opened the door, Archer heard voices from his study. As he put away his hat and coat he listened. Nancy and Kitty. He was surprised. Nancy seldom came down during the day and Kitty hadn’t said anything about expecting her. He toyed with the idea of stealing upstairs quietly and working in the bedroom, but the phone began to ring in the hall and as he picked it up, he saw Kitty coming out of the study to answer it. He waved to her and she stopped, waiting to see if the call was for her. “Hello,” Archer said into the phone.

“I want to speak to Clement Archer.” It was a man’s voice, rough and harsh.

“Speaking.”

“You God-damn, Jew-loving, Red sonofabitch,” the man said evenly. “Why don’t you leave the country before we carry you out?”

Archer hung up. He looked reflectively at the instrument, then smiled at Kitty.

“Who was that?” Kitty asked.

“Wrong number,” Archer said. He put his arm around Kitty and tried to get her to walk with him toward the study. But Kitty didn’t move.

“Was it another one of those calls?” Kitty asked.

“Which calls, darling?”

“There’ve been nearly a dozen of them this morning,” Kitty said. She talked swiftly, but Archer could see she was making an effort to be calm. “Men and women. Cursing you and me, too. Threats.”

I mustn’t be angry, Archer thought. That’s what they want.

“Yes,” he said gently. “I’m afraid it was.”

“Don’t you think we ought to do something about it, Clement?” Archer realized Kitty was frightened. “Call the police?”